HIGH TIME PIPE DREAM CAME TRUE: DAVE

Decriminalize pot, the PM pronounces. Sweet. Well, not exactly sweet. In
fact, not near sweet. More like a half-step on the road to sweet.

"At least people won't be getting criminal records, they won't be locking up
our sons and daughters for a plant no different than the Alberta Wild Rose,"
decides a determined Dave, watching our fearless federal fool on the tube.

"This shows our party is the one showing leadership. I wouldn't be surprised
if the government is going to the websites of the marijuana parties for
ideas."

Better than where they usually go.

Yep, you've got to hand it to our Dave and those like him. They have fought
fearlessly for pot, grass, weed, dope and bud, for the right to the
enjoyment of the elevating experience of a blunt, a spliff, a doobie, a
gagger, a fatty, a toke and a retro reefer, once the reputed source of so
much madness.

They have lived and loved in a world where their wonder plant dare not speak
its name except in jive and jargon.

They now await their vindication.

Slowly, there is a faint smell of victory in the air.

Present polls show most Canadians want some liberalizing of the law. The
feds are making a move to the middle, though not one toke over the line.

Those on the pot pilgrimage harbour no illusions. Their cannabis crusade is
far from over.

Our Dave is the interim leader of the Marijuana Party of Alberta. Dave is
only the interim leader because right now the party is not legal yet. It's
still gathering signatures to register as the official provincial party for
pot parity.

Once they get enough names on the dotted line, or wavy line for that matter,
the party will hold a party, a gabfest for grass.

They will elect a leader and field candidates in all 83 Alberta ridings. The
pot poobah says he's already talking to his cannabis comrades at the federal
level, in B.C. and in Quebec.

"They're the Bloc Pot," he says.

In Dave's design, a cannabis Canada would be quite the place.

"It would only help. It's the most nutritious seed, you can make durable
clothes and fuel that's less polluting than gas. As many as 20,000 products,
even paper."

That should make the bureaucrats happy.

"There would even be savings on law enforcement. No more barbaric warfare on
citizens."

No, Dave will not rest.

His party wants to licence pot like booze. Dave says a toke is no different
than a glass of wine or two or three after work. Partaking of pot, sampling
a spliff, does not lead to a lost life shooting up in some stereotyped
sleazeball scene.

For Dave, only the wickedness of the war on drugs turns the happiest of
herbs into a dastardly and despicable drug.

His solution sounds so Canadian in its organization.

In Dave's design, growers would sell to a government Marijuana Control Board
who, in turn, sell to licensed vendors and cannabis cafes. Marijuana would
be taxed, regulated and even inspected by the government to ensure the
highest quality.

Get it? Highest quality.

Farmers could grow a different kind of grass, says Dave, speaking like a
good Alberta Tory. There's the rural vote.

More economic opportunity for entrepreneurs. There's the urban. Less taxes,
more freedom. Cannabis capitalism.

That's Alberta.

"It would be the true Alberta Advantage. Besides we need a government to
represent the people of Canada, not Washington. They put pressure on us to
make laws to comply with what they want," says Dave, dissing Dubya.

"If our politicians truly represented us, the laws would've been changed
long ago. Now they're coming around to our way of thinking."

So Dave will accept the PM's half-step for what it is and no more. He has
the continuing confidence of the crusader.

"We are the choice of the new millennium," he says, vowing one day to
perhaps replace Ralph as premier.

Replace Ralph? Are you smoking something?

"You never know," dreams Dave. "Stranger things have happened." Sweet.